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About The Columbia press. (Astoria, Or.) 1949-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 2017)
T he C olumbia P ress 1 50 ¢ C latsop C ounty ’ s I ndependent W eekly n eWspaper 503-861-3331 City plans to fix ‘ugly’ downtown problem October 13, 2017 Vol. 1, Issue 41 Bottleneck intersection to be widened B y C indy y ingst The Columbia Press The Columbia Press Fixing ugly isn’t easy. When Oregon Department of Trans- portation widened portions of Main Av- enue and sidewalks were replaced, it left a problem: big ugly power poles in the street. And then a car hit one. ODOT “fixed” the problem by putting curbs around the poles with white re- flective posts. “ODOT dropped the ball,” City Com- missioner Mark Baldwin said. “What they presented to us didn’t look anything like what we got,” Mayor Pro Tem Rick Newton said. “We got ‘ugly,’” Commissioner Tom Dyer said, completing Newton’s train of thought. Bring in the small trees and shrubs. Warrenton’s Urban Renewal Agency is formulating projects that will beautify Warrenton, particularly downtown. When the agency was formed a decade ago, its mission was to take tax money and make chang- es that would impact cit- izens’ lives and improve the city’s economic vital- ity. Dyer The first decade brought massive and expensive changes to Warrenton Marina. This sec- ond decade will bring smaller practical changes that are hoped to have a high impact visually. The Veterans Memorial Plaza – a gath- ering place with benches, trees, land- scaping and pavers highlighting a new See ‘Bulb-outs’ on Page 4 Photos by Cindy Yingst Above: A pickup squeezes past a bus at the intersection of Main Avenue and Ninth Street near Warrenton Grade School. Below: Two girls scurry across Ninth Street at the intersection that will be widened next summer. Main Avenue at Ninth Street is one of the city’s busiest intersections from 8:30 to 9 a.m. Buses, children walking to Warrenton Grade School and parents dropping off their children all seem to converge at the bottleneck. And when two big vehicles – a fire truck and a full-sized bus, for instance – meet, it can be an effort as awkward as a size 12 woman putting on size 8 pants. The city took steps to ease the squeeze this week. City Commissioners approved a $160,000 plan to widen and round out the corners of the intersection. “This is a project that we feel, at staff lev- el, needs to be moved up in the prioritiza- tion chain,” City Manager Linda Engbret- son told commissioners Tuesday night. Another road project in the city came in under budget, leaving nearly the en- tire amount the city engineer estimates is needed for the Ninth and Main project. “It’s a terrible intersection,” Mayor Pro See ‘Intersection’ on Page 4 Italian restaurant planned at Shilo Inn site Changes are in the works at several other Warrenton restaurants The Columbia Press Owners of Jim’s Place, a diner that will serve American and Italian food, hope to open by the end of next week in the restaurant building next to Shilo Inn in Warrenton. “I just think, with Walmart go- ing in, Warrenton is the next up and coming thing,” said DeAnna Lounsbury, who will manage the restaurant for her son, Jim Raniero, who will do most of the cooking. On Tuesday, the 40-seat restau- rant won approval from the City Commission to obtain a liquor li- cense from the state. The large restaurant most recent- ly was home to Dragon River and before that, Mulan. Earlier this year, a 24-hour diner had been proposed at the site, but plans for that fell through. Jim’s Place will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner and there will be The manager of Jim’s Place said they expect to See ‘Restaurants’ on Page 4 open next to Shilo Inn by the end of next week.
